The Idiot Cull

Idiots are everywhere. They shouldn't be. Here comes the cull

Monday, August 14, 2006

I read it and wept - Idiot #20

Before I launch into today's idiot I present my congratulations to Darren Campbell for his reaction to winning gold as part of Britain's 4 X100m relay team. The suggestions are that he was not happy with Dwain (repentant cheat) Chambers being part of the team. Understandable given that the team he was part of four years ago were stripped of their medals.

Darren is not the most talented of the current crop of British sprinters but he has always given his all when asked. He could have backed out of the team as a protest but I think by doing his duty and then refusing to celebrate he has shown what kind of man he is and I tip my hat to him. I think it is disgusting that Dwain chambers is allowed to compete at this level after admitting to cheating.

However we are here for the idiots and idiots are here. Today I nominate the writers of this letter suggesting that British foreign policy is putting British citizens at risk. Specifically I include the MP's who signed it. All those who signed the letter are eligible to vote and whilst our election process is far from perfect it generally works. This letter read to me like a threat. Change your foreign policy or die. That disgusts me.

If you don't like our foreign policy then bear it in mind at the next election, vote for someone who promises something different, write to your MP and tell them. As for the MP's who signed it, you are an integral part to our democratic process. What about the collective responsibility of parliament for the laws and policies that are put forward in our name? You take the public purse for your salary and when something happens you don't agree with you condemn the very system you are part of.

As it happens I am not entirely satisfied with my country's foreign policy nor did I vote for Labour at the last elections, but I am sensible enough to realise that they are in power because enough people believed they would do a better job of running the country than the alternatives. The Government we get should be thought of in the same way as investments. Past performance should not necessarily be a guide to future performance. However that is pretty much all you have to go on. Democracy in action is not always pretty and it makes us uncomfortable because deep down we know that we only have ourselves to blame for the things our Government does.

Today's Cull: You will be added to a bottle of liquid explosive and wired up to the battery on a disposable camera, what happens next will be inevitable.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Why MP's should not breed - Idiot #19

Two posts in two days, blimey. I was driven to post by this news story. The MP for Norwich north has managed to insert his feet firmly in his mouth and suggested that the high level of diabetes in his area is due to inbreeding. Of course he didn't use those words exactly but it was clear what he was driving back.

Now generally I think our MP's do a good job but this sort of remark is likely to see Dr Gibson out of work come the next election. his remarks were the sort of thing people would joke about in a pub after work, not publicly announce on the Local radio station.

The thing that struck me about this is how little press the story has got. We have an MP publicly suggesting his constituents are inbreeding and you get a story on the Beeb website but I have seen nothing else. I am sure it has made the news locally but not much else. I bet if he was london based it would be different.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Chuck the damn spear - Idiot #18

After a week without a post due to workload I present you with a sporting idiot. In a former life I was a bit of an athlete even as far as doing my degree in sports science. Yesterday I witnessed a top level athletic failure of the highest order.

I am talking about Kelly Sotherton. On Monday and Tuesday she was competing in the heptathlon at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg. At the end of five events she was well in contention for a medal, and was the closest challenger to the eventual winner Carolina Kluft. The penultimate event is the javelin. It is well known as Sotherton's weakest event and it showed. She just managed to break 30 metres scoring a pitiful 478 points where previously she was averaging about 900 points per event. Her throw would have embarrassed a club level athlete. The javelin is one of those events that is deceptively simple. It looks straightforward but requires a good technique to get any sort of performance. I have seen skinny guys easily out through big lumps at athletics meetings simply because they knew what they were doing.

In Britain there is a history of success in the javelin and a fair number of decent coaches. Why the hell did she not work harder at it? I am sure she has put some work into it and the problem is now partly psychological. It is no longer a case of nipping the javelin failures in the bud as they have been going on too long already, she needs someone to tell her what she is doing wrong. That someone should be British Athletics. With central contracts being offered to top performers British Athletics should invest in what are now their employees like any other organisation. The performance director thinks it is clever to publicly mark the athletes out of ten, I just hope that behind the scenes he is making sure that the athletes are getting more that just financial support.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Rogue Zebra Alert - Idiot #17

After a week off from posting due to work induced laziness I present the latest idiot to cross my path. This one originated sometime on Thursday night. I noticed on my way to work on Friday morning that the High Street had gained an additional piece of artwork. Not the traditional bit of graffiti but a new zebra crossing, painted in white emulsion, about twenty yards from the official one.

The road either side of this new addition to the landscape was marked with white tyre tracks and footprints, the paint was none of your traditional quick drying variety. By the time I returned home on Friday evening the crossing had been embellisged with a sign designating it as an illegal road marking. To be honest if you are the sort of person who needed to be told that it was an unofficial crossing then you shouldn't be out on your own.

I have no idea why this was done, but it is a cut above the usual acts of vandalism I see around where I live. It demonstrates an additional level of thought processes that the average local idiot does not posses. Is it rebellion against traffic, are the perpetrators environmental terrorists seeking to confuse the motorist? Or are they motoring zealots that did it with the express aim of taking out a few errant pedestrians?

Regardless of who they are they are idiots. Not because of what they did, but because they gave no clue to either who they are or what their motivation was. It's like killing yourself and not leaving a note. We learn nothing from the actions of these people and for that reason alone they are subject to the cull.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Not the sharpest tool in the box - Idiot #16

A veritable feast of idiots today but as usual only one will get the prize. First up is the three handbag lady that sat next to me on the train home. Being male I have no idea what is in a woman's bag but I am always amazed when I see people with the need for two or three of them. If it is a one off thing then okay, but that fact that this lady was using three fairly sturdy and expensive looking bags suggests that this was a regular occurrence. Surely it must be easier to use one big bag than try to juggle with three smaller ones? However this is such a regular occurrence out here on the suburban express that it is not going to win the prize today.

The second nomination is to the scumbags that leave their used chewing gum on the seat back on the train. It is repellent and just annoys the hell out of me. I bet they'd get the hump if I wiped bogies on their sofa's. I think they should be shot... Out of a bloody giant cannon over Beachy head for public amusement.

Finally it is today's victor. Last night I rushed home early (although with my train cancelled rushed is probably the wrong word) to attend my sons school open day. Whilst they we inspected some of the work he has done. Being a boy of a certain age number one son likes dinosaurs. A lot of his work involved pictures of dinosaurs and writing about what the pictures are of.

One specific picture had a drawing of a spinosaurus on it. Alongside was the following piece of text:

"This is a spinosaurus, it has sharp teeth"

A basic sentence, but my son is only five. His spelling of spinosaurus was okay as he has spent many hours looking at dinosaur reference books and he has a good memory. However the usual practice in his school is that if a child spells a word incorrectly then the teacher or LSA ( essentially a trained helper in the classroom) writes the correct spelling above it.

In this piece of work the staff member (they usually initial the work they correct but in this case, wisely, they had chosen to remain anonymous) had corrected my son's spelling of sharp. Not a problem you would think until you look closely. My son had written the word like so:

SHARP

The member of staff had written the 'correct' spelling above it:

SHARPE

At times like this I am glad that my wife is a teacher and will hopefully keep my son on the straight and narrow.

Today's Cull: You will be beaten to death with hardback copies of the Oxford English Dictionary. (What are the odds of me making a spelling mistake in this post I wonder?)

Vomitwatch update: I thought the sun might bleach it a bit but it seems to have caused some kind of chemical reaction as the vomit is now getting a brighter orange by the day.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Democracy? - Idiot #15

Before jumping to the nomination today I will admit to making a late bid for the nominee this morning. Traipsing across Covent Garden on my way to the office I tripped over one of the cobbles. This was not a standard trip however. My arms went windmilling over my head. The bag attached to the arms followed before bouncing across the cobbles. In the process destroying two apples, cracking the screen on my portable DAB radio and destroying the bottle of calpol I had bought for my kids (as both are suffering from a summer cold at the moment). All this happened in front of quite a few delivery drivers causing embarrassment to go with the scuffed shoes, destroyed consumer goods and bruised knees.

However today's idiot is somewhat of an easy target. George W Bush last night used his veto powers to overrule a bill to remove the barriers to funding of Stem Cell research. This research has potential to cure things like Alzheimers and Parkinsons Disease, and the US Congress decided that this was a good thing. However Bush decided that this bill was immoral and used his powers to say thanks but no thanks.

No whilst I understand that this is essentially a 'where do you draw the line' argument the bill was going to allow the use of embryos for stem cell research. These embryos would have been destroyed anyway so I don't see the issue. Especially as at the same time a bill banning the growth of foetuses specifically for this sort of research was okayed.

Today's Cull: I took a vote of people I know and the overwhelming consensus was for you to be given a humane culling. However I decided I didn't like that idea and ignored them Therefore you will be removed from the gene pool by being beaten to death by three week old hard boiled eggs.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Namby Pamby - Idiot #14

Today we have a pair of idiots. One of them is me. My life has been relatively idiot-free for a few days, but yesterday evening made up for lost time. With two possible nominations. The first was the fat guy in his forties belting down the path on a mini-motorbike. Unfortunately he didn't fall off and cause himself and his two wheeled lawnmower damage. I hate these bloody things with a vengeance. There are no use as a mode of transport and make loads of noise. The evolutionary backwater I live in has loads of them that come out of the cracks when the sun is out.

If I had my way (which rarely happens) I would issue members of the public with sticks to hit these dipsticks with as they ride past.

However this guy is not today's idiot. That reward is reserved for Mrs Loaf and I. Last night just before retiring to the boudoir I heard a yelp from the wife. She was being terrorised by a giant moth. This bugger had a wingspan like an albatross and the sense of direction of my mum. Being the big man in the house (till my son grows a bit), I entered the fray only to have the thing launch itself at me like a missile. I will admit I screamed like a girl, I know not why.

Eventually we managed to get the thing out of the house. Well I say we, but I mean the wife. She trapped it with a very small mug and then with the aid of a book several times thicker than it needed to be she took it outside and released it. The moth had one final surprise in store though. It refused to leave the mug and so the wife had a look inside the thing. The moth decided this was the right time to vacate the mug straight into her. More girly screaming ensued, this time from a more appropriate gender.